HORSE RACING

HORSE RACING; Shadow of Go for Wand's Death Hovers Over Breeders' Cup

By JOSEPH DURSO

Published: October 27, 1991

One year later, Bill Badgett remembers it clearly and sorrowfully: his magnificent filly Go for Wand flying down the homestretch stride for stride with the great mare Bayakoa, then lunging for the Breeders' Cup championship in the final yards, but tumbling when her right front ankle snapped, and crashing to the track just short of the finish line.

"It was," the trainer said, "like a death in the family."

It was like a death in the family that was watched by 51,236 people at Belmont Park and a national television audience of millions, who were stunned by the third severe accident of an afternoon billed as the most glamorous in thoroughbred racing. This time, the victim was the finest 3-year-old filly in the land. And the spectators were traumatized when Go for Wand reacted to the instincts of her breed and struggled to her feet, trying to finish the race, but wobbled across the track and finally collapsed in front of the clubhouse crowd. The Grief Lingers On

Badgett and his wife, Rose, who was an exercise rider in his stable, jumped onto the track and cradled their filly in their arms in her last moments. They don't like to talk about it now, but they still grieve. "It's something you're always living with," Bill Badgett said as he sat in Barn 11 at Belmont the other day.

Now it's a year later, and the racing world is converging on Churchill Downs in Kentucky for another Breeders' Cup series of championships, seven all-star races that offer $1 million each in prize money and $3 million for the main event, the Classic. They will be staged next Saturday, and they will offer the customary fame and fortune -- and this year, the memory of Go for Wand.

Will the memory darken the day? Will it hover over Churchill Downs on the day of champions?

Racing people live through cycles of life and death with their horses. They know that Alydar, at the height of his career as a stallion who earned $20 million a year, kicked the side of his stall one night last November and suffered a fatal injury at the age of 15. They remember that Cahill Road, one of the favorites for the Kentucky Derby this year, tore a ligament in his leg while running in the Wood Memorial last April, won the race on three good legs and then was retired at age 3.

They heard only on Friday that the sprinting champion Safely Kept had strained a ligament in her leg while working out for the Breeders' Cup, and was retired at 5.

Go for Wand was 3. She had been to the races four times as a 2-year-old, winning three times and running second the other time, and had earned $548,390. As a 3-year-old, she went to the races nine times, won seven, ran second once and won $824,940. The ninth time she raced was the last time.

"It affected a lot of people," Badgett said. "Most of all, it affected everybody in my stable for a long time. It affected Rose and me personally."

"But," he added, sadly but firmly, "it's over and done with."

Ron McAnally, the trainer of Bayakoa, thinks that the news media made a harrowing moment even worse.

"It was horrible," he said the other day. "Such a great filly. But the repeated pictures on TV and the stark pictures in some magazines made the shock even worse."

"But," he added, echoing the common wisdom in racing, "I don't think the public will be turned away from racing. It's sad, but we learn."

Go for Wand was the 7-to-10 favorite as Randy Romero trotted her to the post on that late October afternoon in the bright yellow-and-purple silks of the Christiana Stables. The race was the Breeders' Cup Distaff, and her main threat was the older champion, Bayakoa, at 11 to 10. They were so good that the third betting choice was Colonial Waters at 14 to 1.

They ran like the blazes: the quarter-mile in 231/5seconds, the half in 461/5 seconds, three-quarters in 1:103/5 . At the mile, Go for Wand was running on the inside and slightly in front. At the sixteenth pole, Bayakoa caught her. But Go for Wand, straining to defend her lead, stretched her stride for even more speed, came down on her right front ankle and crashed to the track.

At 8 o'clock the next evening, 180 miles north, not far from the finish line at Saratoga, the fallen filly was buried near the infield flagpole.

"I selected Saratoga," her owner, Jane duPont Lunger, said the other day. "She won two of her biggest stakes there. And Mr. Lunger and I started our racing stable there. It was hard to go back to Saratoga, but it was the right thing to do.

"Yes. it was like a death in the family. But I've coped with it. I must have received 300 letters from people everywhere, and I answered all of them. She was truly a people horse. She loved racing. She loved to work, to eat, she loved her stable people. Her whole life was joy."

So, what are we to think, one year later?

"I would plead with all of her friends," Lunger said, "not to dwell on the sorrow of her death. Just remember the joy she brought to racing."

Photo: Go for Wand as she suffered her fatal injury during last year's Breeders' Cup at Belmont. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)